


fight fire with fire

by fathomlessfear



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Getting Together, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Original Character(s), Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:09:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21870583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fathomlessfear/pseuds/fathomlessfear
Summary: the union between The Boy Who Couldn’t Be Broken and The Boy Who Just Wanted To Break
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	fight fire with fire

Dan Howell liked to punch things. 

Or, well, it wasn’t that he _liked_ to punch things; it was more that he just did it frequently. It felt necessary. 

And to clarify, he did in fact only punch _things_. Never people. And he never did it in the presence of other people, either. It was just that sometimes, shit went really, really wrong. Quite often, too. Sometimes life was really unfair, and even cruel, and it made Dan’s blood boil. So much so that the only way he could temporarily get rid of the bubbling heat in his chest was to take it out on the walls of his flat. Except that never did much for him, because he had to be careful not to punch an actual hole in the wall and then inevitably get thrown out of his building. Sometimes he would punch the hard, wooden surface of his desk, which would make the floor rattle. Other times, if no one was around, he would try to discretely punch the benches at the park, just enough to make his hands ache, but hopefully not enough to get noticed. Punching tree trunks when it got dark enough helped too, although the bark would tear his skin to shreds. Not that he minded. 

Today, all Dan could do was punch his pillows. It didn’t result in that delicious lick of outward pain that balanced out the pain inside of him, but it did allow him to punch as hard as he wanted to without the fear of breaking something that shouldn’t be broken. It also allowed him to collapse face-first onto his bed after he had used up all his energy and sob his eyes out. 

His punching parades didn’t always end with a grand finale of tears, but today he couldn’t help it. Dan clutched his abused pillow to his chest as a shaky wail ripped itself out from his throat. God, he hated when he acted this fucking weak. 

Maybe today could be the one exception to his utterly pathetic fuckery. It was, in fact, his birthday today. His twentieth birthday. Allowing himself to wholeheartedly cry would honestly be an appropriate birthday gift for himself, given the circumstances. The circumstances being that his mother sent him a _”good morning love, happy birthday!! i miss you always!!”_ text, which of course may not seem like a very good reason to have a punching and crying fit over. Except the circumstance extended to the fact that when Dan woke up to this text, his heart swelled with an unexpected warmth and all the tension in his body had temporarily softened. Dan couldn’t remember the last time his mother had tried to contact him. So of course, getting a text from her was surprising, but her remembering his birthday was downright unbelievable. 

Dan could have been upset that his mother texted him. Really, she had no right to act like nothing was wrong, but Dan was mature enough to accept that she needed some time to process things. He was capable of forgiving. Hell, he missed the woman. It wasn’t like he wanted to leave their family when he was seventeen anyway. 

So, in all his twenty-year-old adultness, Dan texted back, _”miss you too! how about i swing by tomorrow to say hi? it’s been forever.”_

It took an hour for his mother to respond. Finally, Dan received a text saying, _”oh love, i’m not sure if that’s the best idea. your father would prefer if you finish sorting our your…preferences first. but have a good week!!”_

Dan would give anything to use those stupid fucking double exclamation points to poke his eyes out. 

So yeah, maybe it was okay that Dan was spending his morning crying like a baby. Years had gone by and his parents _still_ rejected him for something as stupid as his _preferences._

Dan almost stopped crying just to scoff at that word. _Preferences._ To be fair, that was a much nicer word than the other words his father had used in the past. Although, knowing his mother, she probably just used the kid-friendly version of whatever his father had called him. That is, if his father even acknowledged him at all. For all he knew, Dan could be dead to the man. 

Fuck him.

And at this point, Dan wanted to send a big “fuck you” to his mother too for letting his father determine when Dan could and couldn’t see his own family. 

His heart ached for his brother. Dan couldn’t blame him for the lack of communication; he was too young to fully comprehend why Dan had to leave their home, and now Dan had no idea what excuses his parents fed him as a result. 

That thought only rekindled the fire in his heart. _Fuck. Them._ for tearing his life apart for something he couldn’t change. 

Dan dropped his pillow and threw another punch. 

——————————

His pity party couldn’t last for long. Just because his parents didn’t fucking love him didn’t mean he could ignore the fact that he was an independent adult who had to keep his job in order to pay rent. 

So, almost robotically, Dan got out of bed, washed his face, put on some mostly clean clothes, and went to work. Because what else was he supposed to do?

The good thing about his job as a waiter was that it was usually so insufferable that it could somewhat mute some of his angry, jumbled thoughts. All the rude, weirdly picky customers he served did, inevitably, make him angry, but it was a different kind of angry. It was the kind of angry he could let out in the form of complaining to his coworkers at the back of the restaurant. And thankfully, they always agreed with him.

“Can you believe the absolute prick I just served?” Dan whined to his coworker Sarah, an hour into his shift. “He made me bring back his order even though I _know_ he order Italian dressing instead of vinaigrette. Who the hell gets that pissy over salad dressing?! And then, like the asshole he is, he didn’t leave a tip. And _then_ —get this—he had the audacity to tell me I have bad posture while he was walking out! How is he allowed to tell me I have bad posture when he’s an old man who walks like he’s about to tip over?”

Sarah laughed. “Dan, that’s terrible. I don’t know why you always get the shitty customers.” The way Sarah’s dark brown eyes lit up with amusement, her lips pointing up in a smile, Dan almost felt guilty. He was genuinely pissed at the idiotic man, but Sarah made the situation seem so light-hearted. Maybe he was just overreacting. 

Dan sighed. “I need to quit this job. I don’t think food service is a good fit for my limited social skills.”

“Oh, Dan. Stop being so dramatic. You’re great at your job and you know it.” She adjusted her apron and put a sympathetic hand on Dan’s shoulder. “Don’t let him get to you. There are too many wonderful people in the world for you to just focus on the assholes.”

“Alright, thanks Sarah. That makes me feel a bit better,” Dan said, even though it wasn’t true. 

Fortunately, the rest of the day wasn’t so bad. He had been too angry from before for his job to completely take his mind of things, but at least things weren’t getting worse. He was even serving a family right now with three adorable (and well-behavior) kids. The littlest girl even said she liked Dan’s hair. Sarah was also admittedly making things a bit easier to manage, and besides, he was getting paid to be here. So things couldn’t be too bad and Dan was just overreacting. Right?

He only had twenty minute left of his shift. Mentally crossing he fingers, he hoped that he could make it to the end of the day without anything else ticking him off. To keep himself occupied, he cleared off one of the now empty tables, carefully stacking the plates in a neat tower. Dan had never been particularly strong, but lifting heavy stacks of plates almost every day helped him build at least some muscle in his arms. Nothing to really brag about, but it was better than the noodle arms he had all throughout his teenage years. 

With the plates in hand, Dan started walking back towards the kitchen. 

The end of his shift would have been fine if he saw this spill of water on the floor. 

But in true Dan-fashion, he felt it before he saw it. His shoes skidded right through the water, making him lose his balance. The plates went flying out out his hands as he flailed his arms to keep himself from falling. 

“Fuck!” he shouted, surrounded in a million pieces of broken plates. 

“Don’t swear in front of my children.”

Dan looked up. The mother of the cute family he had been serving was glaring at him as her three children stared at Dan, eyes wide and mouths open in shock. 

Of course he’d screw up like this. “Oh, god. I am so sorry. L-let me just clean this up and I’ll be out of your way. I’m so sorry,” he babbled. 

Sarah, who had heard the shattering plates, came out of the kitchen with a broom and pan. “Here,” she said. When Dan took the cleaning supplies without saying anything, she added, “It’s okay, Dan. I have to go back to the kitchen but just clean it up. It’s not a big deal.”

But it felt like a big deal as Dan lowered himself to the floor, feeling the family piercing holes in his back with their stares. 

“Need any help?” said a deep voice above him. 

A man, probably in his early twenties, stood above him. His hair was dark blond and wavy, just long enough to brush the shoulders of his plain black hoodie. His jaw was nicely defined and his dark eyes had just a hint of mischief in them. 

Suddenly Dan remembered why he was gay. 

“O-oh. Uh, no, this is my fault. It’s fine,” Dan sputtered. 

The man crouched down anyway, picking up a large piece of plate with his fingers. “Eh, it’s alright. It looks like you could use the help.”

“Thank you.”  
The man hummed happily as he placed more of the larger chunks in the pan. “So, you’re Dan, right?” he asked. 

Dan looked down at his name tag just in case he forgot his own name. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Caleb.” Caleb reached towards Dan to pick up another shard, grazing his hand against Dan’s in the process. “Seems like you’re kind of having a bad day.”

The way Caleb’s voice got deeper as he moved a bit closer to him made Dan’s pulse quicken. “Y-yeah, I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s been the best. Do most people spend their birthdays dropping plates and making people mad?”

“It’s your birthday?!” Caleb explained. “You’re spending your birthday working? When do you get off your shift?”“Probably like fifteen minutes now.”

“You have any plans?” His voice was impossibly low now. “You’ve got to celebrate somehow.”

Dan swallowed. “No, I don’t have any plans.”

They both got up to dump the shards in the bin in the kitchen. Once they were out of earshot of the family, Caleb said, “I don’t live too far away from here. I can wait for you to get off of work if you want to come over.”

If Dan wasn’t a perpetually angry, slightly sexually frustrated, family-less young adult, then maybe he would have thought twice about going home with a random suggestive stranger who he had known for all of three minutes. But that was not the case.

“Yeah, just wait in the booth over there,” Dan said. And that was that. 

——————————

Caleb was attractive. Attractive enough that Dan couldn’t stop sneaking glances while they walked to Caleb’s flat. If all went well, Dan would be reaping the benefits of Caleb’s attractiveness—and forwardness—in no time. He couldn’t wait to get his fingers tangled up in that long blond hair and lick down his smooth skin. 

“I have a flatmate so we can’t be too loud,” Caleb said, interrupting Dan’s thoughts. “He’ll probably say hi to you because he’s weirdly nice like that, but yeah, I think I’ve been making him uncomfortable with all the, uh, noise.”

Though that was a reasonable request, Dan felt familiar anger bubbling up his throat again. Not towards Caleb—or his roommate. Just himself. What the hell did he think he was doing, spending his birthday fucking a stranger with a roommate who didn’t want to hear them fucking? It was pathetic; Dan didn’t even know if he was doing it because he wanted sex or because he just needed something to do. 

Or, more likely, he just wanted someone to temporarily care about him. 

Fucking pathetic. 

Dan was still silently seething, obliviously lost in thought, by the time Caleb let him into his flat. 

A voice greeting them, “Oh, hi Caleb. And hello…?” 

Dan looked up from his shoes. A man with jet black hair and pale skin was staring back at him. It would almost be a vampiric combination if he wasn’t sitting cross-legged on the couch with a sticker-filled laptop in his lap. The word “nerd” practically glowed across his forehead. Dan remained staring at him until he released the man was trying to talk to him. “Oh, uh,” he said. “I’m Dan.”

“And hello Dan,” he finished, not bothering to give his own name. “You two have fun.” He dropped his eyes down to his laptop screen. 

Caleb placed his hand on Dan’s lower back. “Yeah, yeah, thanks Phil.” With his hand still on Dan, Caleb pushed him gently towards his bedroom. “Sorry, my roommate’s a bit strange,” he whispered after closing the bedroom door behind them. 

It felt wrong to diss the poor guy—Dan probably wouldn’t know how to act either if he had a roommate who kept bringing back one-night-stands. “Oh, it’s okay. I didn’t think he was that bad. Actually—“

But Caleb was already pushing Dan backwards towards his unmade bed, his warm fingers sneaking their way under the fabric of Dan’s shirt. “Shh, stop talking,” he said against Dan’s ear. His hot breath made Dan shiver. “How about you use that mouth of yours for something else.”

And with that, a flurry of clothes made their way to the floor. Dan let his stupid fucking brain dissolve with every touch, every soft grunt and moan. And when he finally entered Caleb, he didn’t stop until every last ounce of anger in him had been fucked away.

**Author's Note:**

> get ready, phil's gonna be an absolute angel bean in this one


End file.
